If we are “to grow by the sincere milk of the word”... we need the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and in order to this there must be the exercising of ourselves unto godliness — the “laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,” so that the Holy Spirit be not grieved. Has the Christian allowed envy, guile, hypocrisies, to work in his heart? There can be no growth in the true knowledge of the things of God.
The great secret of growth is looking up to the Lord as gracious.
J. N. Darby